


it's better to burn than to fade away

by danthrusts



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alcohol, Cliche, Food, Friends to Lovers, Internalized Homophobia, Intimacy, Kids, M/M, Swearing, idk im not good at tags tbh, if youre into dumb sea animal facts read this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-14
Updated: 2016-06-14
Packaged: 2018-07-13 01:34:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7132751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/danthrusts/pseuds/danthrusts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the new boy Dan moves in across the street, Phil isn’t quite sure what to think.</p>
            </blockquote>





	it's better to burn than to fade away

**Author's Note:**

> hiya this was originally written for the phanfic exchange!
> 
> beta; celestialhowell
> 
> **also posted on danthrusts.tumblr.com

_**[[age seven]]** _

As long as Phil could remember, the house across the street from his had always been empty. A few weeks ago, the **‘For Sale’** sign was replaced with a brand new one that read ‘ **Sold!’**. Now, Phil peered eagerly out his bedroom window, watching as the new family unloaded boxes from the moving truck.

A short boy with blond curly hair hopped out of the moving van, his shoes lighting up green and blue as he slammed into the ground. He looked about Phil’s age, maybe a little younger. He laughed as his father pat him on the back and handed him a small box. Phil squinted his eyes and peered through his glasses to read the mystery box; the box was labeled **‘Dan’s Toys’**.

Phil jumped from the windowsill and scurried down the stairs as he desperately searched for his mother. His purple and yellow mix-matched socks caused him to slide on the kitchen tile, and bump into his mum.

“Oh! Are you okay?” Phil’s mum asked her son as she swept Phil’s mousy brown hair away from his forehead.

Phil ignored her question. He was fine, anyway. “They’re here!” he shouted excitedly. He took her hand in attempt to drag her out the door.

“Who?”

“The new family,” Phil answered with a toothy grin. “They have a son, and also a dog!”

“Do they now? That’s lovely!”

“I want to go meet them,” Phil insisted, tugging on her hand. “Let’s go say hello!”

Mrs. Lester squeezed Phil’s hand. “I think we should wait a bit before we go say hi, so they can get settled in, don’t you think? We want to be polite and courteous. Besides,” she bent down next to Phil and pressed her lips into a smile. “We can’t greet them without a welcoming present. Why don’t you and I bake them some cookies?”

“Can they be chocolate chip?” Phil asked hopefully.

“I don’t see why they couldn’t be chocolate chip!” Mrs. Lester exclaimed and pushed herself up from her crouch. She ordered Phil to get the giant mixing bowl while she found him a stepping stool as he was still a little too short to reach the top of the counter. They washed up and were soon ready to bake.

Phil and his mum poured the ingredients into the bowl and stirred the dough, giggling when some of the mix left the bowl. When the dough was thoroughly mixed, they rolled pieces of cookies into little balls and stuck them in the oven to cook. The smell of chocolate chip cookies filled the air, making Phil’s tummy grumble and mouth water as he thought about eating them. When all of the cookie dough balls were placed onto the multiple cookie sheets, Phil licked the excess cookie dough from his fingers, then rinsed them under the faucet.

As he waited for the chocolate chip cookies to bake, Phil sat on the windowsill and watched the new family settle in. Their dog ran happily across the garden and rolled excitedly against the fresh green grass, probably thrilled to be out of the car and on the ground again. Phil wondered what their dog’s name was. He presumed it was named something cool, like Winston or Thor because if he were able to get a dog, that’s what he would call it. (Phil thought about it a lot.)

A few days later, after the new family across the street had settled in, Phil peeked through his curtains to find the little blond boy building something in his yard outside. Phil squinted as he tried to figure out what it was, but when he still couldn’t see, he slipped on his black-rimmed glasses. Even with his glasses on, Phil couldn’t piece together what the boy was building.

Bursting with curiosity and questions, Phil decided to go ask the boy what he was making. He had to leave the chocolate chip cookies that he and his mum made behind, though, because he unfortunately couldn’t reach them in the cookie jar.

Phil pulled open the heavy front door and exited into the bright, sunny outdoors. Phil walked down the pathway until he reached the end of his garden. He shielded his eyes from the sun and squinted as he peered at the boy across the street.

“What are you making?” Phil shouted at the boy.

The boy looked up from his project, confused. He pointed at himself as if to ask, ‘ _me?_ ’ like there were a million other people building things on the same exact street. Phil nodded his head, urging the boy to answer his question as he crossed over to the other side.

“A bird house,” the boy answered quietly and looked down at his work. He added, “Usually my mum helps me build them.”

Phil didn’t think it looked like a birdhouse; in fact, he didn’t think it really looked like anything, but he wasn’t going tell the boy that. The contraption had nails sticking straight out of the slanted, uneven wood and it was barely held together.

“It looks nice,” Phil lied so he wouldn’t hurt the boy’s feelings. (They’d of course only just met and making him upset was last on Phil’s list of things to do.) He held out a hand and introduced himself. “I’m Phil.”

The boy took Phil’s hand and shook it shyly. “Nice to meet you, Phil. My name is Dan.”

“That’s a cool name,” Phil told Dan as he sat down in the grass next to him. “It’s definitely cooler than Philip.”

“I think Philip is a nice name,” Dan said as he picked up the hammer beside him. He started to hit some of the crooked nails into the wood.

“So does my mum,” Phil laughed. “But imagine if I was called Ricky Blitz. That would be cool.”

Dan scrunched up his nose in distaste and shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he said. “I think you should just stick to being called Phil.”

Phil nodded his head in agreement and mumbled a small ‘yeah’.

The two new friends were silent for a while. Phil watched as Dan loudly continued to hammer at his ‘bird house’, every so often adding another scrap of wood to the unfortunate bird deathtrap. Phil was almost certain that there were nails sticking out on the inside of it.

“Are you going to put this up for the birds?” Phil asked, breaking the silence.

“Yeah,” Dan nodded his head.

“And you’re going to let them live in there?”

“Hopefully,” Dan answered. “My mum and I have built loads of these and heaps of birds lived in them. But that was at my old house.”

Phil cocked his head and studied Dan’s bird house. “Did the other ones have nails sticking out inside them, too?”

“No,” Dan said defensively. He lifted his contraption and examined it. He peered into one of the cracks and sure enough, there were pointy nails sticking out on the inside. “But I’m sure it’ll be okay. The birds can probably put grass in there to cushion the nails.”

“Yeah,” Phil agreed. “Probably.”

The next day, Phil found his new friend Dan outside once again, trying to hang his bird house on the large oak tree in his garden. Sadly, Dan could only barely reach the lowest branch. Phil watched amusedly as Dan reached for the branch, his fingertips barely grazing the wood.

“Do you need help?” Phil finally asked his new friend. He was slightly taller than Dan and just tall enough to touch the branch (and hopefully put the bird home in the tree).

“I’ve got it,” Dan replied as he continued to try (and fail) at putting the deadly bird house onto the branch.

“I don’t think you do,” Phil said and looked up at the branch above them. Phil watched as Dan jumped up and smacked the branch with his hand. The bird who had been perched on the limb flew away, startled at the sudden impact. “I’ve been watching you try for like a million years. Let me help -- I think I can reach it.”

“Okay.” Dan sighed defeatedly as he handed over the birdhouse.

Phil reached up, and sure enough, if he stood on his tippy-toes he was just the right height to reach the branch. He slid the house onto the tree and grinned at Dan. “Got it,” he announced as he stood back to admire his work. “We make a good team.”

“Thanks,” Dan muttered and looked up at the bough where his creation sat.

“You’re welcome,” Phil replied and put his hands on his hips. Several moments of silence passed before Phil spoke again. “Hey, do you want to go see my treehouse? It’s like a birdhouse, but much bigger -- and for people.”

“I know what a treehouse is.”

“Okay, well do you want to come?” Phil asked.

“Let me ask my mum first.” Dan answered and started toward the door.

“Wait!” Phil called out to the blond boy. “Do you have a gameboy?”

“Yeah?” Dan stopped abruptly at the door.

“Bring it.” Phil instructed.

“Okay.” Dan disappeared into his house for a few minutes.

Phil pocketed his hands as he waited for Dan to return. He watched a bluebird land several meters above him, promptly missing Dan’s deathtrap of a birdhouse. It flew away, frightened by Dan’s slamming of the door as he returned from inside with a gameboy and small black bag full of games.

“My mum said yes,” Dan informed Phil as he walked toward him. “But only after like a billion questions.”

Phil’s eyes traveled to the window to find a woman, probably Dan’s mom, peeking through the curtain. When they made eye contact, she swiftly closed the curtain and disappeared. “Okay, let’s go.”

And so the two boys walked across the street to Phil’s house where Phil guided Dan toward his backyard and up to his treehouse. It became a slight problem when Dan didn’t have enough hands for the ladder and his gameboy. After a moment of uncertainty of what to do with his device, Dan slipped it into his pocket and climbed up the ladder. To his surprise, he was met by an old, brown welcome mat as he crawled through the opening.

Dan looked around the room, amazed by how much bigger it was than he’d perceived before. In the corner sat a couple of colourful bean bag chairs, one orange and one blue; Dan walked over to them and ran his fingers over the soft fabric as his eyes took in the rest of the room. Copious amounts of food and bottles of water sat against the wall in a plastic tub. Phil even had a tiny desk built into the side of the wood with books scattered among other papers. There were many drawings taped to the walls, including one that read **‘ _Phil’s Treehouse_ ’** written largely in blue marker.

Dan noticed a twin-sized mattress and several pillows sat in the corner of the room, opposite from the bean bag chairs, as well as several blankets.

“You sleep up here?” Dan asked, still slightly surprised, as he continued to take in the rest of the room.

“Sometimes,” Phil answered as he plopped down into the blue bean bag chair, urging Dan with his hand to do the same. “Only when it’s warm, though.”

“That’s so cool,” Dan mused. “You’re so lucky. All I build are birdhouses and I can’t even go in those.”

“Birds can,” Phil countered.

“I’m not a bird,” Dan argued, then changing the subject. “How did you get your bed up here?”

“My mum and dad somehow did it, I don’t know. This treehouse was built when I was a baby for my brother, Martyn, but now he says he’s too old to play up here.” Phil shrugged. “His loss, not mine.”

Dan laughed slightly before remembering he had brought his gameboy. He slipped it out of his pocket, as well as the bag of games, and placed it on his lap. “So why did you ask me to bring my gameboy?”

“Oh yeah!” Phil jumped up from his seat and started toward his desk. “Because I have one too and I thought it’d be nice to play them together. Do you have any Pokemon games?” Phil grabbed his device from his desk and flipped it open before throwing himself back onto the beanbag chair.

“Do _I_ have any Pokemon games?” Dan asked, surprised at the question. He quickly rummaged through the bag of games and excitedly pulled out more than one Pokemon game cartridge. “Of course I do! I love Pokemon!”

“Who doesn’t?” Phil grinned, looking eagerly through all of Dan’s games. “Have you beaten any of them?”

“Like ten billion times,” Dan exaggerated slightly, but he _did_ play the games a lot, and thus, had beaten them more than once (and some more times than others…). “Have you?”

“Of course I have,” Phil replied, shocked at the absurdity of the question. “Once, I beat one of them in one day.”

“Holy cow, so did I!” Dan exclaimed, eyes wide in astonishment.

“No way!” Phil mused. “That’s incredible.”

Dan and Phil spent the time until dinner talking about Pokemon and video games, learning more and more about each other. And by the time Phil’s mum called him in for dinner, Phil felt absolutely certain that he and Dan were going to be good friends™.

Dan and Phil quickly transitioned into being best friends, bonding through video games among other things. As the summer went on, they had many sleepovers, mostly up in Phil’s treehouse (which they’d renamed to _‘ **Dan and Phil’s treehouse’**_ ). It was very seldom that they wouldn’t spend the night together, but when one kid wasn’t sleeping over, they’d come run over to the other’s house straight after waking up. Their mothers hardly saw their children all summer due to their obsession with sleeping in the treehouse; every waking minute, it seemed, was spent up there. They hardly had any excuse to come down, anyway. There was food, water, and video games -- what else did the two boys _really_ need? (Probably plumbing, but...)

As the summer came to an end, Dan was grateful he didn’t have to worry about making friends at his new school -- he already had Phil. Phil had promised his best friend that he’d be his very own guide to the school, explaining the whereabouts of everything important. He’d even introduced Dan to his school friends, Chris and Louise, who happily welcomed him into their friend group. School wasn’t as bad as Dan thought it was going to be (though, the homework definitely _was_ as bad as he thought it was going to be).

Even as the school year went on, Dan and Phil were inseparable; they were practically joined at the hip. During games, their classmates didn’t choose just _Dan_ or just _Phil_. They chose them together; if Dan was on the team, so was Phil, and vice-versa (although it may have only had to do with their similar skill at sports).

_**[[age eleven]]** _

And it was no different four years later (sure, the treehouse was a bit more worn because of its constant use over those four years, but it was basically like a home to them). It was the week before year six began, and the pair was camped out in their treehouse, gazing up at the sky. Their eyes danced across the night sky as they admired the stars from the window, permanent smiles carved into their faces.

Phil listened intently to Dan’s voice as he rattled off the constellation names, pointing the ones he could see in the sky. He’d heard Dan talk about the stars and constellations numerous times, but he never got tired of it. He loved to hear the passion in Dan’s voice as he eagerly pointed out his favourite patterns of stars.

“That one,” Dan pointed out the window of the treehouse at a collection of stars. “Is called Aquila. My mum told me that it’s supposed to be an eagle, though I don’t really see the eagle.”

“What do you see?” Phil asked, squinting up at the stars. He didn’t really see an eagle either. He thought that whoever looked up at the sky and thought it was an eagle must’ve been crazy.

“I don’t know,” Dan pressed his lips together as he studied the stars more carefully. After a moment of silence he spoke again, “A giraffe?”

“Really? I see a dog.” Phil observed.

“You always see dogs,” Dan rolled his eyes.

“Not always,” Phil argued. “Sometimes I see cats… or space robots… or aliens.”

“Okay,” Dan surrendered and changed the subject. He pointed to another area of the sky. “That one is Pavo and it’s my favourite.”

Phil pointed up. “That’s Wilma and it’s my favourite.”

Dan questioningly rose a brow, “Wilma? That’s not a real constellation.”

“Yeah it is,” Phil replied as a toothy grin filled his cheeks. “Are you telling me the Greeks were the only ones who were allowed to make up constellations?”

Dan opened his mouth to answer, but instead gasped loudly as he watched a shooting star fly across the sky. “Look!” he shouted excitedly at Phil (although he didn’t need to shout because Phil was standing right next to him). Phil’s eyes traveled back up to the sky and he himself let out a small gasp. “Make a wish!”

Phil reached for Dan’s hand and linked their fingers together for extra luck (or maybe it was because Phil had the desire to hold Dan’s soft hand). They closed their eyes tight and wished upon the shooting star. After a moment, they both opened their eyes in unison and quietly watched the comet disappear into the sky.

Neither of the boys said anything for a while, each too amazed by the comet’s appearance. They stood at the window, their noses pressed up against the glass, astonished, watching for the unlikely event of another falling star to shoot past.

As the awe slightly wore off, Dan realized he was still holding Phil’s hand and let go. Phil tried not to show his miniscule disappointment.

“What did you wish for?” Dan finally asked as he wiped his sweaty hand on his shirt.

“To be young forever,” Phil replied, a soft smile tugged at his lips as he glanced up at the sky. “I don’t want to grow up.” He said to the sky.

“That’s deep,” Dan replied.

“Yeah, well what did you wish for?” Phil asked, tearing his attention away from the sky and back to his friend.

“Twenty pounds,” Dan admitted, feeling his cheeks heat up.

Phil laughed. “You could have wished for anything, _anything_ in the whole wide world, and you wished for _twenty pounds_?”

“Don’t make fun of my logic,” Dan crossed his arms over his chest and giggled at his own stupidity. “There is a lot you can do with twenty pounds.”

“Like what?” Phil challenged, raising his brows. “What can you do with twenty pounds that _beats_ being a kid forever?”

“I think the real question is why you would want to be eleven for forever,” Dan queried. “What eleven year old get to kiss girls? Don’t you want to kiss a girl, Phil?”

Phil hesitated before answering. “Not really,” he shook his head. Phil decided not to add the fact that he wanted to kiss _boys_ , not girls. He was still trying to figure it all out, anyway.

“Oh,” Dan replied quietly, then added, “Then think about all that homework you would be doing for the rest of time.”

“Okay,” Phil agreed, the corners of his lips raising slightly. “You got me there.”

A new school year means new people. And that’s exactly what Dan and Phil got in year six when they arrived at their classroom to find two new students joining their class -- Pj and Ursula. And somehow, those two found a way to push themselves right into Dan and Phil’s friend group.

Phil was fond of Pj, he had no problem with him barging into his squad -- in fact, he welcomed the poor new guy. He liked Pj’s hair and how he was constantly doodling what seemed to be monsters in his notebook while the teacher was talking. He liked how when he wasn’t doodling, he was folding paper into different structures, like birds and dogs. He liked how quickly and easily his imagination could formulate a story about anything.

On the other hand, Phil strongly disliked Ursula. He didn’t like how close she sat next to Dan at lunch, giggling at every word he said. He didn’t like how she would purposely brush her hand against Dan’s and pretend it was an accident. He didn’t like how she would cut everyone else out (including himself, Pj, Louise, and Chris). And Phil especially didn’t like that Ursula was Dan’s girlfriend.

When Dan talked about her, which was constantly, Phil tried his best to be happy for his best friend, but he couldn’t keep his jealousy from interfering. And he couldn’t figure out why.

Why was he so jealous of Ursula? Why did he have the constant urge to rip her hand away from Dan’s and replace it with his own? Why was it that every time he thought of Dan and Ursula together he wanted to implode?

He told himself it was because she was a bitch. He’d never really used that word before, but he concluded it was the best description of her. The name was oddly fitting, considering she was a villainous sea urchin. Phil had this theory that her spines were out to get him, poison him, and kill him off to rid herself of competition. Louise said he had an overactive imagination.

“Ursula and I kissed,” Dan blurted out of nowhere one evening while he and Phil were relaxing in their treehouse.

“That’s great…” Phil said flatly as he tried to push down the overwhelming jealousy that was crawling up his throat. It tried to push it’s way past his lips; he wouldn’t let it.

Dan ignored Phil’s uninterest and continued speaking. “It only lasted a second, but she was like candy. I bet she was wearing some kind of lipgloss,” Dan smacked his lips together. “Maybe cherry.”

“Wow,” Phil didn’t even try to feign enthusiasm. He was too busy trying to keep himself from saying something he’d regret. “That’s… life changing.”

“I can’t believe of all boys at our school, _our school_ , Ursula fancied me!”

Phil could believe it; Dan was beautiful.

“She’s easily the prettiest person at school.”

Phil begged to differ as he stared longingly at his best friend.

Instead, he agreed. “Mhm.”

Dan never seemed to shut up about the ugly sea urchin called Ursula that was his girlfriend. The more Phil heard Dan talk about how much he fancied her, the more and more jealous he became. Phil decided that if he had to hear one more word about Ursula and how she tasted like cherry lipgloss, he was going to lose it.

So for the first time in four years, Phil spent a day without Dan at his side.

Dan was instead replaced by Pj, the boy with the most creative imagination in (probably) the whole world. At lunch, Phil urged Pj to take Dan’s usual seat, but Pj rejected the proposal and sat at his normal seat, across from Dan’s regular seat. It wasn’t as if Dan would have known anyway, he was sitting with Ursula and her friends instead of Phil and his.

Not that it mattered anyway…

As it turned out, Phil and Pj were a lot alike, so substituting Dan for Pj didn’t work out as well as he’d planned. It wasn’t that Phil didn’t like Pj, and they could definitely be friends, but he wasn’t best-friend-in-the-whole-wide-world material. He wasn’t I-want-to-share-my-treehouse-with-you material, although Phil did strongly believe that Pj’s doodles would look superb hanging from the inside.

Phil eventually came crawling back to Dan after a week of ignoring him, not that Dan noticed that much. Dan was a clownfish, feeding off Ursula’s venomous spines.

Eventually, Phil knew, that Dan and Ursula were going to break up; they had to. All year six relationships came to an end eventually (although to Phil, it felt like by the time this one came to an end, they’d be ninety, not eleven). So, Phil endured the endless Ursula talk, but as Dan spoke fondly about her, Phil imagined a sea otter ripping through the ocean and eating her. If only she were an actual sea urchin.

When Phil wasn’t imagining Ursula being devoured by a sea otter, he was admiring Dan’s face as he talked about her. Phil pretended the affection in Dan’s eyes was because of him, not the horrible sea witch. And he admired Dan’s hair, which he’d just started regularly straightening because Ursula decided she liked it better that way (Phil found that ironic). He appreciated every single curl that made an unwelcomed (but very welcome to Phil) appearance across his forehead. And Dan’s chapped lips, that he very much did not want Ursula kissing, but for some reason wanted his own to be pressed against them instead.

And Phil wasn’t sure why he felt this way. Most boys didn’t want to kiss their best friends, so why did he? Why did he have the desire to wrap his arms around his best friend and cuddle him to keep warm, like they did four years before? (Why did they ever stop?)

Phil hated being eleven. It felt like every other word that came out of his mouth was ‘why?’. And he didn’t know _why_.

“She definitely fancies you,” Dan gossiped to Phil as he poked him repeatedly in the arm. They were talking about Addie Jones, a girl in their year with bright yellow hair and a face full of freckles. “Ursula told me.”

Phil held back from rolling his eyes as Dan said her name. Just the very thought of her made him want to throw up. “Oh,” Phil pretended to be interested; he raised a brow. “That’s nice.”

Phil really didn’t like girls all that much. Surely he liked them as friends, but nothing more. He felt broken, almost. He didn’t feel the way he was _supposed to_ about girls -- the way his brother felt about girls, the way Dan felt about girls…

“I think you should ask her on a date,” Dan suggested, trying to help his pal out. “You could go with me and Ursula.”

“Yeah,” Phil replied, an idea lit up on his face.

 _Fake it until you make it._ If he didn’t like girls now, surely he would if he pretended to. It was a foolproof plan. He was going to make himself _normal_.

And so with the help of Dan, and a beet red embarrassed face, he asked Addie to the park (with Dan and Ursula.)

Unfortunately, the date didn’t go as well as planned. When Addie asked to hold hands, Phil hurried down the slide and pretended not to hear her. When Addie talked about how much she liked him, Phil changed the subject. And when Addie wanted a kiss goodbye at the end, Phil stuck out his hand instead of his lips. Addie awkwardly grabbed his hand and shook it, a small disappointed frown tugged on the corners of her mouth.

Later, when Dan brought it up in the treehouse, Phil didn’t want to talk about it. He quickly changed the subject to the stars so he could listen to Dan talk about them. Dan happily obliged and pointed up at the newer constellations in the sky, explaining them in precise detail. Phil tried to ignore the familiar feeling of the desperate yearning to kiss his best friend, but as he listened to Dan speak, the feeling only got stronger and stronger. His heart almost leaped out of his throat.

Phil wondered why he wanted to kiss Dan and not Addie. Sure, Addie was beautiful, but not in a I-Want-To-Kiss-You kind of way. But Dan was both kinds of beautiful. As he watched Dan, Phil got lost in the thought of planting soft, tender kisses on each of Dan’s dimples, then nose, then cheeks, then lips, then...

His thoughts were interrupted with a sigh, escaping Dan’s lips -- his perfect, chapped pink lips. “Are you even listening, Phil?” Dan crossed his arms and stared his best friend up and down.

“Mhm,” Phil replied, shaking himself from his thoughts and averting his eyes back up at the night sky above them. He pretended the sky was more interesting than the boy in front of him. _Like that was even possible_ , Phil thought to himself.

Dan raised a questioning brow and crossed his arms against his chest. “Is this about Addie?” he asked, trying to bring the subject back up.

“No,” Phil urgently shook his head with a deep desire not to bring the subject back up. He ran his tongue over his bottom lip and tilted his head toward the sky, admiring the celestial bodies above him with a small grin. He rose a hand and pointed upward, changing the subject abruptly. “Tell me about that one again.”

Dan furrowed his brow, his chocolate eyes following Phil’s finger upward. “I don’t believe that one actually has a name,” he concluded with a slight doubt in his words. He frowned and studied the group of stars more thoroughly, tracing invisible lines into the sky with his finger before shrugging. “I guess we could name it?” he suggested, defeated by the unbeknownst constellation in the night sky.

Phil thought for a moment, his lips curled into a smile as he came up with a name. It was perfect. “Let’s call it Phan; it’s like a mix of our names together: Phil and Dan.”

“Why not Dil? Dan and Phil.”

“Because ‘Phan’ sounds better than ‘Dil’. Dil is like calling it a giant pickle; our constellation is _not_ a giant pickle.” Phil liked the way the words ‘ _our constellation_ ’ rolled smoothly off his tongue.

Dan shrugged, clearly giving up on the argument, and agreed. “Okay, you’re right.”

Phil grinned in triumph. “So, Phan it is?”

“Phan it is.” Dan answered as he gazed at their newly discovered constellation.

“And then she just--” Dan sat in the treehouse red faced and crying as Phil attempted at patting him lightly on the back. He had to admit, although Dan was beautiful doing most things, he was an ugly crier. “--just broke up with me.”

Phil resisted the urge to rise from his chair and do a victory dance. Instead, he patted Dan’s back. “It’ll be okay,” Phil said softly as he comforted his heartbroken friend. “It’s okay.”

“I l-loved her,” Dan spoke through loads of snot and tears. His small body shook as he wept.

“Oh, no, you did not,” Phil spoke in his softest, nicest tone. He corrected Dan, “You liked her a lot; there is a difference.”

“How do you know?” Dan stopped sobbing for a moment, just long enough to look up at Phil. He sniffled and wiped some of the tears away from his cheeks with the back of his hand.

Phil pondered it for a moment -- how _did_ he know? Did he _love_ Dan or just really like him? He shrugged, not willing to admit his uncertainty to his best friend. “I just know.” He wrapped his arms around Dan’s shoulders in comfort and held the smaller, younger boy closer to him. Dan sniffled into Phil’s chest. After several minutes of silence, Phil broke it. “I never liked her much anyway,” he admitted.

“You’re just saying that to make me feel better,” Dan argued, unwrapping Phil’s arms from around his torso. “Everyone likes Ursula.”

Phil shook his head. “Not Louise -- or Pj,” he pressed his lips together, then added, “I don’t know about Chris, to be honest.”

“You’re joking,” Dan accused, slightly shocked, his reddened eyes lighting up at the thought. “I thought everyone fancied her.”

“She’s a Disney villain,” Phil smiled slightly. “Her parents must’ve hated her, calling her after the sea urchin from _The Little Mermaid_ and all.”

Dan laughed, his shoulders shook slightly. “Of all names in _The Little Mermaid_ \-- Ariel, Aquata, Attina, even _Flounder --_ and they chose _Ursula_ , the nastiest, most unpleasant character in the whole movie.”

“It’s quite fitting, though.” Phil laughed and clasped his hands together, letting them fall to his lap.

Dan shot Phil a small, sad smile. “Yeah, I guess so…” he sighed loudly and pressed his lips together.

And later, as Phil laid there, hugging the younger boy, he thought that perhaps Dan wasn’t a clownfish feeding off of Ursula’s venomous spines and maybe he was an otter instead. Whichever sea animal Dan was, it didn’t matter, because Phil had his arms wrapped around his best friend, cuddling him and keeping him warm, just as they did four years before. (And it didn’t feel like they’d stop any time soon.)

_**[[age seventeen]]** _

As it turned out, Phil’s wish for eternal youth did not withstand.

Dan and Phil were seventeen now and their short, stubby legs had grown much, much longer than when they were seven and eleven. And unfortunately, just like Phil’s height, his crush on Dan had grown bigger too.

Sick with nostalgia, Dan and Phil climbed carefully up the old, worn wooden ladder, and looked around the old treehouse for the first time in two years. When they were fifteen, the two boys declared they were too old for the old, shabby thing, and hadn’t been up since.

That was, until now.

One by one, the pair crawled through the entrance of their old treehouse, careful not to hit their heads on the splintering wood. Phil pushed himself up and brushed off his black jeans, which had dirt on them from the welcome mat at the front of the treehouse. With his hands on his hips, he glanced around the room, his heart bursting with nostalgia. He let his eyes linger on one of the old signs he and Dan had hung up when they were seven years old. The edges of the piece curled with age and it had a slightly yellow tint, but it was still readable. It read: _**Dan and Phil’s treehouse**_. Phil smiled at how awful his and Dan’s handwriting used to be.

He walked over to it and grazed his hand over the fragile paper. “Hey, Dan, look at this,” he pointed to the piece of paper with a small smile. “Your handwriting is still the same,” he cheekily pointed out, laughing. “Like hieroglyphics.”

“Shut up,” Dan chuckled softly, running his hand over the dust covered desk. He plopped down in the chair and spun around in it. Although it squeaked loudly, it was still fine -- or not broken. “Ah, the nostalgia,” he finally said.

Phil nodded as he shook out the dust (and God knows what else) from the blue bean bag chair and sat down in it. Dan followed him, doing the same things to the orange one. “I agree,” he sighed thoughtfully, remembering all of the lazy days of playing Pokemon together on gameboys for hours upon hours with no talking, and the sleepovers where they’d sit and talk about whatever came to mind.

“Do you want to stay the night up here?” Phil suggested, hoping Dan would say yes. They hadn’t done it in years and he yearned for being eleven again; if only his wish had come true. “Like we did when we were kids?”

Dan didn’t even have to think about it. “Yeah,” he grinned. “Yes, yes, _yes_.”

And so, they updated their stash of food and water, as well as blankets. While one boy stayed in the treehouse, the other stood on the ground and handed buckets of items to the other, so they could transport everything into there.

Finally, after a lot of work, they had moved everything up into the treehouse.

“How the hell are we going to endure that?” Dan asked, signalling to the small, twin sized bed. When they were younger, they used to share it, but now they were so large and tall, there was no way they’d be able to easily share the mattress. At least, not without practically being on top of each other.

Phil didn’t say it, but he had absolutely no problem with being that close to his best friend, in fact, he strongly supported the plan. Instead, he shrugged. “No idea.” He ran his fingers through his newly-dyed dark hair and coughed. “I didn’t think this part through.” (He did.)

“I suppose it’ll just be a tight squeeze.” Dan shrugged nonchalantly and let out a light laugh. He shivered slightly and rubbed his hands together. “At least I’ll get to share your warmth. It’s a bit colder than I remember.”

Was he flirting? Phil couldn’t tell, but felt his cheeks get warmer at the thought; he hoped Dan hadn’t noticed. “Yeah,” Phil choked out, suddenly remembering he could speak words. “Yeah, it is quite cold.”

“How did we suffer through this when we were little?” Dan stretched out his arm and struggled to reach a blanket. His fingers grazed the fabric slightly, but he couldn’t get a good grip on it. He gave up after about a minute of unachieved glory, instead deciding to tolerate the chilly summer air.

Phil pushed himself up from the bean bag chair and grabbed the blanket himself, rolling his eyes at Dan’s laziness and complete lack of the idea of using his foot to lure the blanket toward him. “Here.” He threw the blanket at Dan and plopped his butt back down.

Dan draped the blanket over the two of them before they both pulled out their gaming devices. They’d both upgraded to Nintendo DS’s (because this way, they could play together), though stuck with the abundance of Pokemon games. This time, however, they played Animal Crossing instead until nightfall hit.

Phil’s stomach growled. He set aside the game and patted his stomach. “Are you hungry?” he asked, sitting up from his chair.

Dan looked up from his screen. He shut it. “Starving,” he glanced down at his belly. “Want to order pizza?”

“Do you reckon they deliver pizza to treehouses?” Phil inquired.

Dan shrugged, “They might.”

So they ordered the pizza, earning a confused _‘huh_?’ from the guy on the phone when Phil mentioned they’d be delivering it to the treehouse in the back. Phil paid the poor pizza delivery person a little more than usual because it was such an odd request. (At least they didn’t have to climb up the ladder -- Dan and Phil waited for their pizza at the bottom of the ladder.)

Dan and Phil devoured the pizza, opened a bottle of vodka, and propped Phil’s laptop up so they could both see the subtitles on the anime they’d just begun watching. The video buffered and Phil found himself questioning how they’d ever underwent the monstrosity that was no internet when they were young. The connection barely reached up into the treehouse.

Phil sighed. “This isn’t working,” he declared, gesturing toward the silent laptop screen. It was stuck, buffering, right in the middle of a sentence. He shut the laptop and took the first drink out of the opened vodka; the liquid burned as it traveled down his throat.

“I know,” Dan frowned, taking the bottle from Phil. He sipped it before continuing, “What’d we even do for fun back then?”

“I remember looking at the stars a lot,” Phil said, turning his head toward the window. An owl hooted loudly. “We even discovered our own constellation.”

“Yeah,” Dan said, smiling, remembering the scene. “It was called--”

“Phan,” they both said together, nostalgic smiles on their faces.

Phil chuckled and tapped his fingers against the glass bottle. He took another sip; it burned less this time. “What an awful, uncreative name for a constellation. The Greeks called theirs Orion and Crux, and we called ours _Phan_.”

Dan laughed and pushed himself up from his slumber. “You reckon we could see it now?” he asked as he ambled toward the window.

Phil shrugged, pushing himself up, leaving the bottle behind and following Dan. “Maybe,” he said once he was right by Dan’s side, shoulder to shoulder. He looked toward the sky, examining all of the stars, one by one. Thanks to Dan and his obsession with the celestial bodies, Phil could probably point out each and every single one. “You see it?” he asked after a few minutes passed.

“Nope,” Dan sighed, his brown eyes didn’t leave the sky. “You remember what it looked like?”

 _How could I forget?_ Phil wanted to say. He didn’t. Instead, he just nodded and said, “Yeah.”

“Me too,” Dan said softly. Phil wasn’t so much as looking at at the stars now as he was at his best friend. His mind felt fuzzy, but surely that couldn’t have been from the two and a half sips of vodka already…

They didn’t speak for a long time, but Phil felt like a thousand and one unsaid words were hanging above them, over their heads. Maybe it was the alcohol doing this to him, or the overwhelming yearn in his heart to have his lips brush against Dan’s rough, chapped ones. Phil thought about what it’d feel like to have Dan’s hot breath whisper his name into the nape of his neck as he ran his lips over his jawbone, and collarbone, and every bone that existed in the human body. Running his hands through Dan’s brown curls...

His thoughts were interrupted by Dan shaking his arm excitedly, as if he were seven years old and not seventeen. “Phil, Phil! Look, look up!” He pointed up at the sky and sure enough there was a bright light zooming across the sky. “Make a wish,” Dan closed his eyes, urging Phil to do the same. It was like they were eleven again, experiencing the shooting star again.

Phil closed his eyes and wished for a kiss from Dan, just as he’d been thinking about before he was interrupted.

Dan ran his tongue over his bottom lip. “What’d you wish for?” he asked, tapping his fingers against the wooden window sill.

“Do you remember when we were eleven and we saw that shooting star?” Phil asked, running his fingers over the old blue window sill. He picked at the chipping paint. “I wished for eternal youth and you wished for twenty pounds?”

“Yeah,” Dan laughed. “I promise I didn’t wish for something _that_ stupid again…”

Phil smirked, “Oh really? What’d you wish for, then? Twenty- _five_ pounds?”

“ _No_ ,” Dan rolled his eyes. “But I believe I asked you first.”

Phil shook his head. “Well, if I tell you, it won’t come true,” He bit his lip and his eyes shifted toward Dan’s lips for a split second before moving back to his eyes. “And oh, _God_ , do I want this to come true.”

“You think that’s why you’re seventeen now and not eleven?” Dan asked, an eyebrow raised. “Because you told me your wish?”

Phil nodded, “Yeah, that’s _exactly_ why.”

Dan silently chewed on his cheek. “Well,” he said, walking away from the windowsill, toward the desk. He pulled open a drawer to find old, dusty paper and broken crayons. He pulled out two pieces of paper along with a blue crayon stub and an orange one. He handed Phil the blue one. “There’s no rule that we can’t write it down and give it to each other. “

Phil bit his tongue. There was no going back; he was going to tell Dan how he felt. After years and years of bottling it all up, he was finally going to say it -- well, not say it, but write it. Dan was going to know how Phil felt about him. His stomach dropped with anxiety and uncertainty.

Phil bent over the piece of paper and pondered for a moment whether or not he should write down his real wish. It could break up and ruin their friendship…

Phil scribbled it down and folded the paper up extremely tightly, like it the truth was going to jump out and attack his best friend. He waited as Dan finished writing, his hands clammy, his heart racing, his mind screaming.

By the time Dan had finished writing, it felt like years. Was he writing a whole novel? He folded his paper neatly in half and handed it to Phil. Was he nervous, too? Phil couldn’t tell. He slipped his wish toward Dan, pushing away any last bit of doubt away.

“We’ll open them on the count of three, yeah?” Dan asked quietly. Phil nodded. “One…”

“Two…” Phil whispered, his voice hoarse with anticipation.

“Three,” they both said together as they both began unwrapping the notes.

Phil had Dan’s open and was reading in a heartbeat, while Dan still struggled with the several billion folds Phil had done. Phil’s eyes ran over Dan’s words. It was only one short sentence, the words neatly printed in crayon -- Phil realized why he’d taken so long to write it. He read it ten times over before Dan had his note open, just to make sure he wasn’t imagining it.

_I wanted to kiss you._

Phil let the note fall out of his hands and flutter to the ground. Without even thinking, his feet guided him toward Dan. His feet stuck to the ground as Dan looked up from the piece of paper, his brown eyes gazed into Phil’s blue. “Me too,” Phil whispered, the words falling off his lips so easily. He brought a hand up to Dan’s jaw. “Can I?”

Dan nodded.

And so Phil connected the space between their faces. He let himself fall into Dan’s aura, his skin, his everything. As cliche as it sounded, he felt as if Dan was breathing life into him. Their noses bumped clumsily, as Dan ran his hands under Phil’s shirt and over his bare back.

When they parted, they both had grins the size of Europe. “You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do that…” Phil said, drinking in Dan’s now swollen lips. He wanted to kiss them again.

“Me too,” Dan said as he let out a breath he didn’t even know he’d been holding. “And I’d quite like to kiss you again.”

So he did.

Once more, twice more, and a trillion times more...


End file.
